Working Woman

      I started my job yesterday. Arriving at the hospital in the morning I began the day by filling out paperwork and providing documentation to HR. One of the employee health nurses went over my vaccination records and I ended up needing to have a rubella titer drawn. I'll also have to undergo two TB tests over the next four weeks. No big deal.
      Next I went up to the Family Birth Center and met with the unit educator. She provided me with a ton of paperwork, to be filled out throughout my residency period, which will be about 12 weeks, as well as a book on Intrapartum Nursing, We went over my schedule, including several days of classes, hospital orientation, and unit orientation with preceptors. I will spend about six weeks working on the mother/baby unit, with postpartum moms and newborn babies, then I will move on to the labor and delivery unit!
     After meeting with the educator, I spent the next few hours reading through self learning modules and filling out written "tests". There were topics such as Infant Abduction, Magnesium Sulfate, Pitocin, Breastfeeding, etc. All things I am familiar with and excited to learn more about!
    I feel so lucky to be paid to do what I love. To start out attending classes, learning more, reading about topics I'm interested in. I am a blessed woman! I am a woman with a job, a paid job! It's been a long time coming. I can hardly believe I've reached this point in my life, that all I've done so far has led me to this point. That myself and my family made it through the trials and tribulations of my education and insanity to this place of my getting to do more of what I love!
   There is  more to come of course. I still plan on obtaining my Masters degree and becoming a midwife, but for now nursing is where it's at, is where I'm at, and I am so EXCITED!!!